Méthode Champenoise Defined

Wolf Mountain Vineyards produces three types of sparkling wines using French-style Méthode Champenoise.

Blanc de Blancs Brut
Brut Rosé
Sparkling Demi-Sec

While many wineries inject still wines with carbon dioxide (CO²) gas to render them effervescent, Wolf Mountain Vineyards produces sparkling wines using the French-style Méthode Champenoise. This multistep process, developed in France's Champagne region, puts the still wine through a second fermentation in the bottle.

Méthode Champenoise is the traditional French method for producing sparkling wine. Originally developed by the Dom Pérignon and his fellow monks, and refined over the centuries by the many important sparkling wine producers that followed. One of three ways of making sparkling wine, it is by far the most complicated and labor intensive.

It starts with making a base wine from grapes that are picked about a month earlier than table wine grapes. This produces a high acid, low alcohol wine. Once the wine has been clarified and is ready to be bottled, yeast and cane sugar is added to the wine and mixed thoroughly. The wine is bottled and finished with a crown cap producing a seal strong enough to withstand the high pressures generated.

While in the bottle, the yeast consumes the sugar and produces more alcohol and carbon dioxide. However, being a sealed bottle, the CO2 has nowhere to go and dissolves into the wine. After about 60 days the alcohol has reached 12% and the pressure has reached 120 psi. The bottles are then stored on their side for 6 – 18 months. This time is called tirage and the longer a wine is en tirage the more complex and bready the wine will be.

Finally we have to finish the sparkling wine. However, we must remove the yeast first through a process called riddling. We invert the bottle on a riddling rack and twist each bottle ¼ of a turn every day for one to two months. This works the yeast into the neck and we can then remove the bottle and put it into a bath of food grade glycol that is chilled to -2°f. The necks freeze and capture the yeast allowing the bottle to be turned upright with out the yeast clouding the wine again. The bottle is then disgorged, meaning the cap is removed quickly and the pressure in the bottle shoots the plug of ice and yeast out at high velocity. If done correctly the sparkling wine stays in the bottle.

We finish the process by replacing the lost wine with dosage made up of sugar syrup and wine. After a week in the bottle, it’s ready to be chilled and served.